Lonely Planet USA (Country Guide) [Paperback]

Regis St Louis (Author), Alison Bing (Author), Ryan Ver Berkmoes (Author), Beth Kohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2012 | Series: Country Guide

“This is a country of road trips and great open skies, where four million miles of highways lead past red-rock deserts, below towering mountain peaks, and across fertile wheat fields that roll of toward the horizon.” – Regis St Louis, Lonely Planet Writer

Our Promise

You can trust our travel information because Lonely Planet authors visit the places we write about, each and every edition. We never accept freebies for positive coverage so you can rely on us to tell it like it is.

Inside This Book…

26 authors
65 scenic drives
103 maps
105 weeks of research
Inspirational photos
Clear, easy-to-use maps
Road Trips & Scenic Drives
In-depth background
Comprehensive planning tools
At-a-glance practical info

Product Details

• Paperback: 1203 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 7 edition (April 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1741799007
• ISBN-13: 978-1741799002
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars As Comprehensive As A Nationwide Travel Guide Can Be April 26, 2012

By Adam F. Jewell

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

A travel guide that covers the ENTIRE United States? Can it really be any good? Yes.

I've spent the last two years road tripping around the country and plan to go for two more. My focus has been mostly national and state parks and traveling on a budget. Up to this point I've used an Atlas, a GPS and a variety of national park books to plan and determine what to see and where to go. When I get to a big city or other signs of civilization I've had to rely on local recommendations and travel brochures to figure out where to go and what to do.

Much to my delight there is a centerfold section featuring photos and basic information about the national parks. The book is divided up by section of the country. These include the Southwest, The Rocky Mountains, NY, New Jersey and PA, Alaska and Hawaii among others. Within each of these "big sections" there are smaller sections that may be a metro area as in Los Angeles in the case of the California section or "Western Nevada" in the case of the "Southwest" section of the book.

At over 1,000 pages, I'd never be able to go through and evaluate this entire book. However, by looking at sections like Yosemite, Eastern Sierras, Yellowstone, Cody, Wyoming and the Jackson Hole/Grand Teton Areas it is possible to evaluate the book based on the areas with which I am familiar. Coverage for these areas is outstanding and includes most but not all of the best sights to see in those areas.

In the Eastern Sierras around Mammoth Mountain the guide highlights some relatively off the beaten path attractions including the Bristlecone Pine Forest (where you will see the oldest living things on the planet) but misses things like Obsidian Dome. Though it includes the Bristlecone Pine Forest as an attraction it does not mention the campground at the Bristlecone Pine Forest. When it comes to lodging, not every hotel (by a long shot) is included in the book but many are. The authors seem to have made an effort to include hostels all across the country which are often the cheapest (non-campground) places to stay.

When it comes to somewhere like Yellowstone National Park, the coverage is relatively comprehensive and includes all the campgrounds in the park as well as some of the more popular attractions and hiking trails within the park. The book casually mentions West Yellowstone as a place where you can find lodging and restaurants but goes into zero detail about West Yellowstone (where tens of thousands of people stay every year when they visit Yellowstone National Park). In a book attempting to cover an area as vast as the entire United States some things are going to be left out.

Coverage of Yosemite National Park is similar to that of Yellowstone. The book highlights the campgrounds, lodges, main attractions and provides suggestions on when to go to avoid crowds.

For Cody, Wyoming the guide includes most of the attractions but misses "Dan Miller's Cowboy Music Revue", by far one of the best things to experience in the town of Cody, Wyoming.

The book contains many maps of the areas covered and includes web addresses and phone numbers for the attractions. This makes it easy for you to call for reservations. For many areas there are tips like "Vegas Clubbing 101" "Cool Pools" in Vegas and "Las Vegas For Children" as well as itineraries for specific time periods in specific areas of the country. Do you have a day, a week, 10 days, then here is a list of suggested sights to see in the time you have available.

Who would this book be helpful for?

If you want to go on a trip and don't know where you want to go, this would be a good book to browse through. You can look through different areas of the country to figure out what there is to see, where it is and about how much it would cost to see what you want to see, eat and do.

If you will find yourself in a particular area of the country you are not familiar with (a business trip, for example) and you want to see what the local attractions are, where exactly they are and how to get in touch with them or what the websites are. If you take lots of business trips to new areas, this book will come in handy on every trip!

If you'll be road tripping through large areas of the country and want one reference to use to add some cool stops to your trip that you may not already be aware of this book would come in handy.

As part of the Amazon Vine program my copy of this book was complimentary but would I still buy it and use it if I was paying for it? Yes. While on the road camping much of the time my Internet access is often very limited. While it might be possible to access a site like Trip Advisor, it is MUCH, MUCH easier to have all this information to reference in one relatively small (considering it is 1,000+ pages) reference manual than trying to piece together all this information on the web. With this book I've got maps, addresses, phone numbers and don't need a net connection to research where to go and what to see.

If you already know where you want to go and are planning a trip to Yellowstone, San Francisco or somewhere like that then skip this book and get a book on Yellowstone, San Francisco or wherever you want to go that goes into more detail for your particular destination.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile overview of the USA from a European view June 27, 2012

By Joel Avrunin TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Trying to jam information about visiting a country as large and diverse as the USA into a single guidebook is a formidable task. Inevitably there will be things left out and people will wonder why the editors picked some attractions while skipping over others. Lonely Planet did a commendable job of providing an overview of the United States, with enough detail to help a person planning a trip know the best spots to go. It is comprehensive enough that combined with the Internet, this could be the only guidebook you need when seeking to explore a new state in the US.

The book is arranged by regions, not by state, likely a more logical way to lay out the country for a person planning a visit. Each region describes the flavor of the area with a list of great cities to see, and within each city, sites to explore. There are some color photos in here, but the book is more about information that the photos themselves. Hence the book is packed with text.

The only downside of the book is that it has a distinctly European viewpoint on the US, and American readers may be a little offended by some of the regional descriptions. In fact, some of the political observations were laughably naive, and it made me wonder what wrong impressions I get when I read guidebooks for other countries. In truth, you visit a place to discover it for yourself and not to let a guide book tell you about it. The purpose of the guide book is to give you a start - pointing out key sites and places to go. The journey fills in the rest. For that purpose, Lonely Planet has written an effective guide to the US and I recommend it for travelers looking to go to the US for the first time, or Americans who want to take a road trip to a new city and need to know what to do.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Decent Overview but... May 29, 2012

By Charles M. Nobles VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This guide book is long, at over 1200 pages including index, very long. It is also very ambitious in that it attempts to cover the entire US.
As a result, it is able to only cover most areas in a superficial manner and seems to be more for foreign travelers than those from the US. I did find that some areas I am familiar with were mentioned in the book but usually in an overview manner and many places I personally feel should have been included are not mentioned at all.

I have a lot of guidebooks, many of them covering a large geographical area, and find a number of them much better than this one. It is simply too large for the material it provides and seems to be more for the traveler short on time that just wants to touch the surface of any given area. I would not recommend it for those more experienced travelers that are looking for a more comprehensive treatment of any given area. For those first timers on a limited schedule it may work but not for those more experienced or discerning in their travel plans.